State lottery games have gained widespread acceptance and popularity in recent years. To play many of the State-run lottery games a player selects a subset of numbers to be printed on a ticket from a larger set of selectable numbers. Large sums of money are won if a player's ticket numbers correspond in whole or in part to the winning numbers. Typically a series of five to seven numbers ranging from one-forty, for example, are selected in hopes that they will match the winning numbers.
In the past players have been known to use a variety of methods for selecting numbers such as birthdates, fortune tellers, numbers contained on a newspaper page or other numbers personal to the player. When a player desires to purchase a large number of tickets, the selection of numbers becomes agonizing and time consuming.
In many states a player has the option of allowing a computer to randomly select the numbers to be printed on the ticket. However, many players are skeptical of allowing a state owned machine to pick their lottery numbers. Computer programs are available which generate random numbers for playing lottery games, however, such programs are expensive and require the user to own a personal computer.
Wheel-type game devices are well known in the prior art, however, the prior art is devoid of any wheel-type devices which are suitable for selecting a series of distinct random numbers for playing lottery games. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 1,560,496 to Bakketun discloses a wheel-type device in which one or more balls are propelled from central spinning arms toward the outer periphery of a disk to attempt to seat the balls in recesses located on the disk. Each recess has associated indicia adjacent thereto for playing various games. The Bakketun patent, however, does not disclose a wheel-type device in which a distinct numerical value is associated with each possible rest position of the balls. Thus, the Bakketun device is inadequate for selecting a series of distinct random numbers such as for selecting lottery numbers. Bakketun is further inadequate for selecting a series of random numbers in that the disk or wheel is sloped downwardly from the recesses toward the center of the disk, which may require repeated spinning before all balls are seated in a recess.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 1,496,721 to Martin and 1,491,961 to Miller also disclose wheel-type game devices having various numerical values associated with different positions on the wheels. The Martin and Miller patents also fail to disclose wheel-type devices in which a distinct numerical value is associated with each possible rest position of the ball or balls and thus are unsuitable for use in selecting a series of numbers for an entry in a lottery game.
Often a wide range of numbers are selectable for playing lottery games. The prior art wheel-type devices are further unsuitable for selecting such a wide range of numbers in that prior art wheel-type game devices do not provide a sufficient number of rest positions to accommodate the numbers selectable in a lottery game.